Many of us believe in some form of magic as children. Superheroes, fairies, and portals to new worlds are so mystifying and exciting that we desperately want them to be real. But as we grow older and imagination moves into the territory of career planning and life building, that magic inevitably fades.
The same can’t be said for Heather Wright. Well into adulthood, she makes magic for herself every day as the owner of Tea & Tarot Herbal Wellness Boutique in Madison, a small town tucked near the Southeastern corner of Connecticut.
The sign on the door reads, “The witch is in.” After crossing the 300-year-old threshold, a steep staircase opens into a warmly lit attic space. The smell of that day’s brew(s) waits alongside tea blends, tinctures, herbs, essences, tarot decks, and more, small treasures nestled in alcoves beneath the slanted ceiling. Every visitor is greeted with a simple question:
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
Unlike some stereotypes of the whimsical magic-adoring type, Heather wasn’t bubbly or easily excited as a kid. “My parents thought something was wrong with me because I wouldn't smile,” she said. “I was just a very serious baby… I've definitely always been very introverted, very sensitive.”
Heather explained her quiet demeanor wasn’t always celebrated or accepted when she was young. But rather than make attempts to change, she held onto her tendency towards big feelings through adulthood. About a decade ago, she was facing both physical and emotional trouble, but not getting the answers she needed. Open to new solutions, she went to see a tarot reader and was told she might make a good reader herself. “I didn't really give it too much thought,” she said. “But I ended up falling in love with it… It felt like a way for me to check in with myself.”
At the same time, she was left unsatisfied with the medical system. “A lot of my doctors were just giving me more and more medications,” said Heather. “And I realized that at the root of it, I just didn't understand proper nutrition. I don't think many folks do. So making some really basic changes was actually very powerful.”
Heather fell in love with both plant work and tarot, attended herb school, and began to read cards for others. In these mediums, her sensitivity shined.
“This was where I felt my power came from – supporting myself and my emotions, but also being able to do that for others,” she said. “And it came really naturally, and it felt like a place where it was appreciated. So my love for it was all-encompassing.” That love got so big, it became a business.
“I joke all the time that my herbal obsession became so much that I had to have a shop to contain it all,” she said. “I was like, “Oh my God, I need more space than just my kitchen for all this stuff.” The shop was built on my own love for all of this.”
Yet, Tea & Tarot isn’t Heather’s day job.
Since graduating from the University of Rhode Island, she has worked in corporate marketing and video production. As an employee of companies large and small, she said she’s still been able to showcase her creativity.
“I'm used to working for big corporations who have full branding guides,” she said. “You have to know exactly what colors, what fonts, what style… everything that they would possibly need for both video and print.”
She’s worked for the company that organized New York Comic Con’s video production, starting up their visual efforts and adding her touch to major creative scenes. She’s managed YouTube accounts for clients and produced podcasts.
Those settings, though, are still a far cry from the interests that began to blossom in her life about a decade ago. Switching back and forth from her corporate job to her plant and tarot work felt like whiplash.
“I felt like I was living this double life,” said Heather. “I still kind of do, like one side of me is in the cubicle in a corporate environment, and the other one would come home and have these magical plants to play with and explore.”
Despite the heavy juxtaposition between the two lifestyles, Heather thinks it’s the exact combination of corporate and cosmic that got her to the point of creating Tea & Tarot. Bringing her passion to her hard corporate skills, her small business came to life as the first major marketing project she’s gotten to take on as her own client. The whole store is a reflection of her, marketing side and all.
“The green cabinet over there is my grandmother's china cabinet. Teacups came from my aunt’s. There's different artwork and items around the shop that are my personal belongings,” she said. “I literally built this space to be the space that I always wanted, you know? The place where it was okay for me to be sensitive.”
Over the past few years, Heather has built the store into a place where anyone feels welcome. While she wanted to help other people with the services she and her team provide, she didn’t expect the space itself to turn into the community hub that it’s become.
Four years in, Tea & Tarot is now a landing place for programs about women’s empowerment and a sweet spot for the queer community — a safe place to land.
“When you're building something, you're like, Oh, this is just my thing that I'm doing on the side, and it's fun and delightful,” said Heather. “But then it becomes more real as you have more and more folks come through the door… We ended up having quite a few women who were dealing with abuse and trying to get through very difficult situations. And I don't think I realized until I was listening to some of the guests talking about their personal stories, how real it was.”
Of course, for all those who have gained a community through Tea & Tarot, a queer, Black, woman-owned business, there are the naysayers. Though she never claims to be an expert in herbal medicine and makes the limits to her knowledge known, Heather’s had her fair share of encounters with skeptics who try to challenge or “test” her – a big reason she’s read at fewer parties, weddings, or other events she’s asked to work. But in terms of any altercations at the store, she said she doesn’t try to sway a customer in any given direction.
If someone isn’t interested in getting their cards read, or thinking about themselves in the context of the cosmos, that’s okay. To Heather, her passions exist to point out trends and patterns that already exist in everyone’s lives; they don’t necessarily need to notice them. But the type of work she does at Tea & Tarot is what made her realize her own throughline.
“I've kind of rediscovered who I am and built out more of who I want to be,” she said. “The things that were often not seen, like my desire to talk about emotions, to want to know how people are feeling, that [weren’t] valued when I was younger, [are] exactly what is my superpower now as an adult.”
According to Heather, those trends and patterns can be discovered anywhere. Her signs to hold onto her empathy and build on her creativity through vastly different outlets came from across the universe—in the cards, the cubicles, the silences, and the stars.
